Both are open source and self-hostable. They were designed for different rooms: BigBlueButton for a classroom, Jitsi for a meeting.
At a glance
| Jitsi Meet | BigBlueButton | |
|---|---|---|
| Designed for | Meetings of all kinds | Online classes |
| Presentation and whiteboard | Screen share, basic whiteboard | Upload slides, rich whiteboard, annotation |
| Polls, breakout rooms | Yes | Yes, classroom oriented |
| LMS integration | Plugins, e.g. Moodle | Deep integration with major LMSs |
| Recording | Jibri, MP4 video | Built-in, web playback format |
| Minimum server | 2 vCPU, 4 GB | Much larger dedicated server |
| Install | Docker or Debian packages on many distros | Specific Ubuntu version, dedicated host |
| Embedding in other apps | Easy (IFrame API, JWT) | Via API and front ends like Greenlight |
Choose BigBlueButton when
- You run structured courses with slides, whiteboard work and polls.
- Your school already uses an LMS and wants attendance and recordings inside it.
- You can dedicate a large server to it.
Choose Jitsi when
- Meetings are conversations: team calls, tutoring, consultations, interviews.
- You want to embed video into your own product or website.
- You want a lighter server bill and a simpler install.
- Participants join from anywhere with just a link.
Recording differences
BigBlueButton records into its own playback format that shows slides, chat and video together in a browser player. Jitsi’s Jibri records an MP4 of what a participant would see, which is easy to share, edit or upload anywhere. See recording with Jibri.
Our view
For education platforms that are really about classes, BigBlueButton earns its weight. For almost every other use, Jitsi is quicker to run and cheaper to host. We specialize in Jitsi: one-click hosting or hands-on help.